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Friday, 27 January 2017

Finding
Tipperary Mary is the title of our next ‘meet the author’ evening at Molesey
Library on Tuesday 28th February. It is also the title of a book, which is now a bestseller here and in
Canada, and was featured in the Times bestseller list for several weeks.

It is a remarkable
true story about a nurse from Birmingham called Phyllis Whitsell who tracked
down the alcoholic mother he gave her up for adoption as a baby and the moving account
of what happened next. Phyllis was encouraged to tell her story by her good friend
Barbara Fisher, who ghost wrote the book. They planned to self-publish but Mirror
Books stepped in and snapped it up, resulting in nationwide publicity and TV
appearances for Phyllis, as well as interviews on radio. The film rights have
also been sold.

Barbara lives
in West London for many years with her husband Mike. They have a daughter,
son-in-law, and a grandcat! She was a teacher for 15 years and entered
full-time journalism at the suggestion of an editor who liked the weekly
schools’ page she wrote for the Uxbridge Gazette. She spent 20 years working
for the paper and is now freelance, but still writes a weekly column. Barbara was
made an honorary fellow of Brunel University in 2005 for her community
reporting.

She is also
writing her own book, Tales from an Old Hack: memoir of a local reporter. Tickets
to the Finding Tipperary Mary talk (28th Feb, 7.15pm) are available from the library priced £5.

An epic tale
of murder, mutiny and man’s struggle for survival against the elements, was
brought to life at Molesey Library by Rear Admiral Kit Layman.

The
distinguished Royal Navy man – who commanded HMS Invincible and HMS Argonaut
during the Falklands War, and frequently accompanies the Queen – was the guest
speaker at the Friends of Molesey Library’s sixth AGM, on the evening of Tuesday 24th January 2017.After being
introduced by our author events organiser, John Coope, the retired admiral took his
place at the lectern and regaled the audience with a good natured and
thoroughly fascinating account of the ill-fated last voyage of the HMS Wager,
which was wrecked off the south coast of Chile in 1741.

Admiral
Layman explained that he had inherited a book about the Wager disaster written
by John Byron, grandfather of the famous poet and one of the survivors of the
wreck. He described the book as “very readable, perceptive and fair to all
sides,” adding: “I read the book rubbing my eyes with disbelief at the story that
unfolds.” That story has been retold for the modern reader by Rear Admiral
Layman in his book: The Wager Disaster, Mayhem, Mutiny and Murder in the South
Seas – of which he signed copies at Molesey on the night.

The 28 gun ship
with her crew of 140 men (plus Chelsea pensioners) had put to see on a mission
to harass and disrupt Spanish interests in South America (Britain being at war
with Spain at the time) but suffered a catalogue of disasters. It was damaged
by a huge storm, lost the rest of the fleet, her captain died, men were
stricken with scurvy and dysentery and the ship was smashed to bits on the
rocks at the aptly named Gulf of Sorrows.

The Admiral said:
“As the ship broke up, discipline broke down.” The men were surrounded by harsh
and inhospitable terrain and they had no food or shelter (though a large amount
of alcohol washed ashore, perhaps not a good thing in the circumstances). They
were stuck there for five months, while the new and unpopular captain, David Cheap,
drew up plans for them to extend the long boat and use it to sail north and
capture a Spanish ship. Trouble was,
said the Admiral, that in those days if a ship wrecked then the Navy was no
longer obliged to pay the sailors, and knowing they were no longer employed
they ceased to feel obliged to follow the captain. When Cheap shot a rebellious
man in the face it was a turning point. 81 men left in smaller boats in a
mutiny led by the gunner Mr Bulkley and sailed for 111 days until they reached
the Rio Grande. Admiral Layman was full of admiration.

While they
made it back to England, 8 of their number were cast away – we’re not sure why –
and they went on to be captured by a tribe of Indians, paired up with the
chiefs captured Spanish slave women (told to breed more slaves) but eventually
made it home in a prisoner transfer.

Meanwhile
Captain Cheap, Byron and those left behind (numbering about 20) lost more and more
of their number in ill-fated attempts to escape and eventually travelled in
land with the help of a native. Finally they got home, five years after they left,
to a court martial, to apportion blame for the loss of the ship and not the
mutiny (luckily for Bulkley). Captain Cheap, who returned home half dead,
married an heiress and retired to Scotland, while Byron became a commodore and
founded a British settlement in the Falklands. He continued to have bad luck at
sea and earned the nickname “Bad Weather Jack”.

The Admiral showed
photos of the Falklands and also where parts of the Wager, like the canons,
have been salvaged and ended up. The ship wreck itself has in recent years been
found by Chilean archaeologists. Finally he took questions from the audience - responding to one that he thought it unlikely, though not impossible, that the Royal Navy could mutiny again - and joined guests for a glass of wine.

Thursday, 26 January 2017

Thank you to
all who attended the sixth Friends of Molesey Library Annual General Meeting on
Tuesday 24th January 2016. For everyone else here is a recap of what
happened.Chairman Pauline
Morozgalska introduced and thanked members of the committee for their hard work
and giving generously of their time throughout the year. She gave a short
overview of the main events during 2016 as follows:

The weekly
Friday Coffee Morning is firmly embedded in the Library timetable and a growing
number of people appreciate the warm welcome and friendly faces. Our dedicated team of volunteers who serve and
provide the delicious homemade cakes are wonderful.

The Knit and
Natter sessions take place on the third Tuesday afternoon of each month. The
group either knit items for themselves or knit for their chosen charity.
Friends have created a great atmosphere where experienced knitters share their
skills with beginners and the inexperienced.

The Friends
support the Library Book Club. Clare Newman liaises with Marian Gibbons to
ensure that there is an interesting selection of books to discuss and
co-ordinates the group.

Generally,
funds are raised through our Author Events and Coffee Mornings so that we can
buy things for our library that are not funded by the Library Service.

We were not
involved in a presentation ceremony for the children’s summer reading challenge.
This was quite simply because there were no medals to award as SCC decided to
just give a certificate – a great shame especially as uptake last summer was
down on previous years.

John Coope arranged
a fascinating programme of author events over the last year. We had police
psychologist-turned novelist Dr John Marzillier, a talk on white Russians by VanoraBennett, and in April Susie Holliday and Louise Voss talked about crime writing
and where their ideas come from. In September there was a full house for
Hampton Court curator Tracy Borman’s talk on the Tudors, and in November local
author Van Louizos whisked the audience back in time to WW2 and his experiences
of Greece under the Nazis. More events are arranged for 2017.

The Chair
introduced Kelly Sanai Badwal Surrey library Service, who thanked the Friends
for purchasing vital equipment for the library (such garden benches and
children’s chairs) and explained that, while visits to Molesey Library declined
1% in 2016 the number of books borrowed remained the same. She said November
had been a particularly good month.

Steve Bax introduced
the committee members and asked proposers and seconders for everyone to
continue in their respective roles for another year. Pauline was reappointed
chairman. She quoted The Reading Agency who claim there are great benefits to
health and wellbeing from reading. “It’s said to help relax you, sharpen your
mind, increase your satisfaction levels and even improve your relationships
with others!” The message remains as ever, that if, as a community we don’t use
this wonderful free facility we will lose it.

Finally,
Treasurer Liz Cooper highlighted the success of the Friends-run coffee and cake
mornings (every Friday at the library) that brought in £1507 last year (all the
cakes are baked by local volunteers!). The author events netted £485, but we
had to spend £310 on repairs to the library sign after it was vandalised. In
total the Friends have £3886.63 in the bank.